Ars auro prior

Ars auro prior - Juliusz Chrościński (red.)

Jan Bialostocki (1921-1988), a scholar of Renaissance and Baroque art history, was one of the world's most renowned art historians. He was director of the Institute of the History of Art at the University of Warsaw, curator of the Gallery of European Painting in the National Museum in Warsaw, member of the Polish Academy Sciences, doctor honoris causa of the University of Groningen (among others), and member of academies and scholarly societies both in Europe and in the United States. He continued and popularized Erwin Panofsky's methods of iconological research, applying them especially to modern art. Many of his works focused on the epistemology of art history and the historiography of the Late Gothic; he edited critical editions of the writings of artists (Leonardo, Dürer, Poussin, Rembrandt). Bialostocki was also an artist himself: he created posters and designed the covers of his own books. In 1981, Jan Bialostocki celebrated his 60th birthday and on this occasion was presented with a 'Festschrift' in his honour, entitled "Ars auro prior" which aptly characterized his attitude towards art. He gave the same title to his standard two-volume history of art published in several editions in Poland, which can be rightly compared with E.H. Gombrich's "The Story of Art".